OXFORD, Miss. - A Lee County inmate is suing the county's sheriff and a top police official in Tupelo because he claims they wouldn't allow him to attend his mother's funeral.

Ray Reed filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court against Lee County Sheriff Jim Johnson and Tupelo Police Major Anthony Hill on Thursday, seeking punitive and compensatory damages for deliberate indifference and cruel and unusual punishment.

Tupelo police officials could not immediately be reached for comment on the lawsuit Saturday.

Reed, an inmate at Tupelo-Lee County Adult Detention Center, is representing himself in the lawsuit.

According to his complaint, Reed was told by his brother and brother-in-law on Nov. 28 that his mother had died.

He asked authorities to take him to the funeral in Verona, or to be taken to view his mother's body at the wake.

Reed alleges that county officials at the jails declined to take him but offered to call the agency which arrested him - the Tupelo Police Department. Johnson said that keeps with the department's policy.

If another agency arrested them, "it will be the call of that municipality. And they are responsible for picking the inmate up and bringing them back," Johnson said.

Reed is jailed on charges of grand larceny, simple assault and public profanity.